Disposables UK - going, going, green!

Meltham-based paper manufacturers Disposables UK, recently secured a prestigious European environmental award making them the first UK company in the 'away from home' market to meet the requirements of the EU Eco-label scheme.

The European Eco-label is a voluntary scheme, established in 1992, to encourage businesses to market products and services that are kinder to the environment. Products and services awarded the Eco-label carry the flower logo, allowing consumers - including public and private purchasers - to identify them easily. Today the EU Eco-label covers a wide range of products and services, with further groups being continuously added. Product groups include cleaning products, appliances, paper products, textile and home and garden products, lubricants and services such as tourist accommodation.

The environmental criteria behind gaining the Eco-label accreditation is very tough, and only the very best products, which are kindest to the environment, are entitled to carry the EU Eco-label. Emma Wood, Marketing Manager for the company explains, "The company has been working on gaining the EU Eco-label on our Bay West range of toilet tissue and hand towels for the last 18 months. As the Eco-label considers the whole life cycle of the product, from raw material through to finished product through to product disposal, the process has been long and challenging but very worthwhile."

Products with the European Eco-label show that they are less damaging to the environment than equivalent brands because they have met a set of published environmental criteria agreed by EU member states. Each of the Bay West® products, which are manufactured on site at Disposables UK's Head Office production plant, were tested at independent test centres and the results analysed by the UK Eco-label assessors and then reviewed by Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs).

The Eco-label considers many different criteria in awarding the accreditation including; air emissions of sulphur and greenhouse gases during production, water pollution during production, emissions of chlorine compounds and organic waste, energy consumption during production and use of recycled fibres or virgin fibres from sustainably managed forests

Emma Wood continues, "Working with our paper mills and their pulp suppliers, we have secured this major certification on some of our Bay West products and we truly believe this is going to give us a great selling advantage over our competitors. Disposables UK have recognised the importance of being green and to be able to provide certified 'green washrooms' into places where environmental concerns are a consideration makes customers happy and increases our market share in the UK washroom market."

Disposables UK Limited has been short-listed in the Green Award category in this year's Examiner Business Awards.